Books — Meteorology

Meteorology

Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather

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Author: Mike Smith

Experience the most devastating storms of the last fifty years through the eyes of the scientific visionaries who took them on and tamed them.

For decades, the author, a pioneering meteorologist, has dedicated himself to saving lives by combining science, experience, and instinct. The struggle to understand nature's fury provides fascinating insights into the natural forces that shape our world, and the turbulent politics that influence our scientific establishment.

Tracing the Herculean effort to improve weather forecasting and advanced warning systems, the author draws fascinating biographical sketches of the scientists behind the breakthroughs, such as Dr. Theodore Fujita, creator of the Fujita Scale for tornado measurement.

With its gripping story-telling approach to major natural disasters, Warnings is narrative nonfiction at its heart-pounding best.

''I highly recommend this exceptional book.''
--Roger Pielke, Sr., Pielke Climate Science blog

''The weatherman's version of The Right Stuff--Mike Smith's Warnings. I recommend it highly.''
--Tom Fuller, The Examiner

''A fascinating journey inside the world of weather and the mind and heart of the meteorologist. A great read for anyone.''
--Bob Ryan, chief meteorologist, WRC TV (NBC), Washington DC, former president, American Meteorological Society

''This book chronicles the remarkable advances that have occurred in meteorology over the past 50 years--not through dry statistics but through very personal stories. The book discusses the virtual elimination of airline crashes due to wind shear and the thousands of lives saved by hurricane warnings. Its primary focus is on severe storms in the Midwestern U.S., but the issues raised about the evolution of forecasting the weather, and the impact those forecasts have on the people and commerce, are much more universal. The narrative throughout the book is engaging and compelling, and I found it very hard to put down after reading just the first few pages.This book is not just for hard-core weather enthusiasts or those who work in weather-related fields (though they will love it). Anyone who has ever watched a stormy sky on warm afternoon or felt moved by the images on the news following the Greensburg tornado or Hurricane Katrina (both of which are covered in this book) will get pulled into the narrative of this book.''
--Keith Seitter, Executive Director, American Meteorological Society Boston

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The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History

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Author: David Beerling

Global warming is contentious and difficult to measure, even among the majority of scientists who agree that it is taking place. Will temperatures rise by 2ºC or 8ºC over the next hundred years? Will sea levels rise by 2 or 30 feet? The only way that we can accurately answer questions like these is by looking into the distant past, for a comparison with the world long before the rise of mankind. We may currently believe that atmospheric shifts, like global warming, result from our impact on the planet, but the earth's atmosphere has been dramatically shifting since its creation. Drawing on evidence from fossil plants and animals, computer models of the atmosphere, and experimental studies, David Beerling reveals the crucial role that plants have played in determining atmospheric change--and hence the conditions on the planet we know today-- something that has often been overlooked amidst the preoccuputations with dinosaur bones and animal fossils. "Beerling uses evidence from the plant fossil record (mutant spores, tree stumps from the Artic and Antarctic, growth rings) to reconstruct past climates and to help explain mass extinctions. Too often this evidence has been disregarded, but Beerling gives it its due, and then some."--BioScience

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The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science

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Author: Naomi Oreskes

In the early twentieth century, American earth scientists were united in their opposition to the new--and highly radical--notion of continental drift, even going so far as to label the theory "unscientific." Some fifty years later, however, continental drift was heralded as a major scientific breakthrough and today it is accepted as scientific fact. Why did American geologists reject so adamantly an idea that is now considered a cornerstone of the discipline? And why were their European colleagues receptive to it so much earlier? This book, based on extensive archival research on three continents, provides important new answers while giving the first detailed account of the American geological community in the first half of the century. Challenging previous historical work on this episode, Naomi Oreskes shows that continental drift was not rejected for the lack of a causal mechanism, but because it seemed to conflict with the basic standards of practice in American geology. This account provides a compelling look at how scientific ideas are made and unmade.

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Methods of Air Sampling and Analysis

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Includes precise directions for a long list of contaminants! All contaminants you can analyze or monitor with a given method are consolidated together to facilitate use. This book is especially valuable for indoor and outdoor air pollution control, industrial hygiene, occupational health, analytical chemists, engineers, health physicists, biologists, toxicologists, and instrument users.

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On Shaky Ground: The New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811-1812 (MISSOURI HERITAGE READERS)

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Author: Norma Hayes Bagnall

Although most Americans associate earthquakes with California, the tremors that shook the Mississippi valley in southeast Missouri from December 16, 1811, through February 7, 1812, are among the most violent quakes ever to hit the North American continent in recorded history. Collectively known as the New Madrid earthquakes, these quakes affected more than 1 million square miles. By comparison, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake affected only 60,000 square miles, less than one-sixteenth the area of the New Madrid earthquakes.

Scientists believe that each of the three greatest tremors would have measured more than 8.0 on the Richter scale, had that measuring device been in place in 1811. Vibrations were felt from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic coast and from Mexico to Canada. The quake zone was in constant movement during this period. Five towns in three states disappeared, islands vanished in the Mississippi River, lakes formed where there had been none before, and the river flowed backward for a brief period.

Providing eyewitness accounts from people both on the land and on the river, Bagnall captures the fears of the residents through their tales about the smells and dark vapors that filled the air, the cries of the people, the bawling of animals, and the constant roar of the river and its collapsing banks. On Shaky Ground also traces the history of the founding of New Madrid and considers the impact of the earthquakes on population and land in southeast Missouri. Predictions for future earthquakes along the New Madrid fault, as well as instructions on preparing for and surviving a quake, are also included.

Informative, clearly written, and well illustrated, On Shaky Ground will be of interest to all general readers, especially those interested in earthquakes or Missouri history.

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Lonely Planet Myanmar (Burma) (Country Travel Guide)

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Author: Joe Bindloss
Brand: Brookstone

Whether you're looking to temple-hop in Bagan, trek through rice paddies in Hsipaw, explore Inle Lake by canoe or relax on Ngapali Beach, this book will help you uncover Myanmar's most memorable experiences. We've found you the best ways to travel indepen

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Radar for Meteorologists

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Author: Rinehart

Radar for Meteorologists

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Air Pollution Control Engineering

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Author: Noel de Nevers

This text covers the whole air pollution field, from an engineering perspective. The principal topics are control devices and their theory. The book uses many more examples than other texts to help the student see the magnitudes of important quantities and to show and practice the practical application of theoretical treatments presented. The other half is devoted to topics that form some of the background for the selection of such devices, i.e., air pollution effects, the structure of U.S. air pollution law, atmospheric models, etc.

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Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water

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Author: Marc Reisner

This is a history of the American West which recounts one of America's most impressive achievements - the creation of an Eden out of inhospitable desert. "Cadillac Desert" recounts this dramatic saga: from the earliest settlers lured by promises of paradise, to Jon Wesley Powell's advocacy of co-operative irrigation projects; from the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles to raid watersheds hundreds of miles away to sustain its phenomenal growth, to the federal government's entry into the water business. Reisner offers a bleak portrait of the future the West faces: over the next fifty years, millions of acres of America's most productive farmland will be abandoned due to the exhaustion of groundwater reserves. Reservoirs will silt up and soil and irrigated water is being contaminated by slat - the downfall of nearly every previous desert civilization.

Principles of Stable Isotope Distribution

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Author: Robert E. Criss

This book presents a quantitative treatment of the theory and natural variations of light stable isotopes. It discusses isotope distribution in the context of fractionation processes, thermodynamics, mass conservation, exchange kinetics, and diffusion theory, and includes more than 100 original equations. The theoretical principles are illustrated with natural examples that emphasize oxygen and hydrogen isotope variations in natural waters, terrestrial and extraterrestrial rocks, and hydrothermal systems. New data on meteoric precipitation, rivers, springs, formation fluids, and hydrothermal systems are included in relation to various natural phenomena.
Essentially, this book seeks to reconnect the diverse phenomenological observations of isotope distribution to the quantitative theories of physical chemistry and the language of differential equations. It may serve as a textbook for advanced students, as a research reference, or as a quick source of information. The book is organized into five chapters, each followed by suggested quantitative problems and a short reference list. The three theoretical chapters progress from an elementary review of the physical chemistry of stable isotopes, to the thermodynamics of isotopic compounds, and finally to the calculation of isotope distribution in dynamic systems. The third and fifth chapters emphasize oxygen and hydrogen isotope variations in Earth's hydrosphere and lithosphere, constituting the most important examples of the theoretical principles. Appendices provide data on atomic weights of light elements, physical constants, mathematical relationships, and isotopic fractionation factors.

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